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Author's Chapter Notes:

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Aisle 7 - Asian foods, noodles, pasta




Brzzzzzzzzzz…




Martha shifted the hefty jar of Ragu pasta sauce in one hand, her other hand tightly clutching the purse on her shoulder as she cast a glance to the side. A girl passed by the adjacent aisle, but other than that there seemed to be no shady figures. Martha looked back at the jar. She rotated it, reading off the list of ingredients, and a disgruntled groan escaped her.




“Hey, Stephanie, bring the shopping cart over here?”




Martha waited a few moments. Then, she belted into a yell. “Stephanie!




Amid the hot brzzzzz of LED’s, the tap tap tapping of Stephanie’s texting ceased. Her head, a dirty blonde veil crouched over the buggy handle, looked up with mild annoyance at her mother. “Yeah?” Gum smacked, crackled, and popped before and after the word.




“Didn’t you hear me? I said, could you bring the cart over.”




Stephanie grunted, then pushed the mostly-empty cart a meter in the direction of her mother. “Why did you feel the need to drag me out here again?”




“Because someone forgot to pick up the ingredients for dinner on their way home from school, again.




Stephanie cringed, then said, “It’s not school, it’s college, Mom. I’m not a child.” She continued texting. Martha rolled her eyes, and silence fell on the pair once more.




Brzzzzzzzzzz…




“Stephanie, we need some cheese. Would you go grab a block from the next aisle?”




Nothing.




“Okay…” Martha marched around the nose of the shopping cart and ripped the phone out of Stephanie’s grasp, to much shock and indignation.




Mom!




Martha brandished the cracked iPhone as she commanded, “Now, when I tell you to do something, I expect for it to be done. If you aren’t going to pay attention to me over texting your friends, you do not need to have a phone while living under my roof.”




“But Mooooom--”




Ah, ah, uhp!” A finger jammed inches from Stephanie’s face silenced her. “Not another word. Cheese. Now.”




She pointed to the end of the aisle, where a corridor lined with shelves of refrigerated juice terminated at the farthest corner of the grocery store to the beginning of the dairy section.




Stephanie sucked in a breath. Then, staring daggers at her mother, she walked away.




Martha sighed, shaking her head, scanning the shelf for another jar of Ragu.




Aisle 8 - Bread, baking, snacks




Fwop… fwop… fwop…




“...your girl need it all and that’s a hunnid’…”




Harmony tapped one turquoise-flip-flopped foot on the ground repeatedly, her musical rendition constantly drifting betwixt humming and soft singing. In the absence of headphones, she simply lowered the volume of her phone to near-zero, and she held the speaker side up to her ear like she was on a phone call, letting the YouTube video play out.




“...pick a jamma, mm-mm, hmm-mm mm-mm, karma come and get’ some…”




The rattling of the buggy launched her out of her reverie, and the calling of her name put a stop to any humming entirely. “Harmony!”




“Hmm?”




She turned. Her mother Sanjana was passing by, pushing a loaded shopping cart after a quite literally fruitful odyssey throughout the various food departments. “I’m going to the register. C’mon sweetie.”




“Just a minute, Mama…” Harmony mused, gaze returning to what she split off from her mother to search for. Harmony scanned the shelves. “You’re sure we don’t have any more Honey Buns at home?”




“Yes, and I already told you that you’re not getting sweets until you can pull your grades up in math.”




“But division is so haaaard!” Harmony complained, stamping her foot hard on the ground.




Crrrunch!




Harmony noticed the light crunching sound, making a note of it in her mind.




“No buts. Look, just get the granola bars, they’re good for you. It’s just in the next aisle,” Sanjana recommended.




“But Mam--”




Ahp!” Sanjana raised one hand forward in a “stop” motion, the universal sound and symbol to not push a parent any further. “I’m going to the register. If you’re not there by the time I pay, you’re grounded.”




And then the cart went on its way, squeaky wheel rattling all down the corridors.




Harmony waited for it to vanish from her earshot, planting her phone deep within her sweatpants. She looked wistfully toward the creamy sugary sweetness that was the Honey Bun box. In a futile act of longing, she raised her hand toward it, fingers pining closer and closer to the cardboard packaging, her childhood values of fear of disobeying her mother honesty the only things preventing her from wrapping her hands around it.




Sigh…




Harmony stretched out her arms, looking around at the near-vacant establishment as the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. The emptiness of the grocery store was beginning to creep her out; it was seldom too populated even on good days, and 9 PM on a school night wasn’t exactly rush-hour. But regardless of reason, the endless droning of the lights gave the young girl the heebie jeebies.




“Urgh…” Harmony stared to the juice shelves that lay adjacent to her point of egress, opposite the opening her mother just passed by. The granola bars were an aisle over, and Harmony needed something to snack on during recess.




She walked… when --




Crrincch.




Oh yeah.




That weird sound.




Harmony meant to check out what it was, and now was the time. Probably some piece of cereal someone spilled. Might as well throw it away.




Harmony looked down at the ground, lifting up her flip-flopped foot from the ground. She heard a brief, slight, unsticking sound as she took a step, and cringed. It sucked to step in something wet. Might be a gummy bear, or a gusher. Some sort of food.




But it was neither. Lifting her foot revealed nothing, save a red imprint with a vaguely star-shaped cavity in its center.




“Hm?” Harmony questioned aloud, lifting her leg up and grabbing her scrawny ankle, balancing on one foot as she examined the thick, wide treads of the seven-dollar flip-flop.




Harmony gasped.




“What the heck…?”




Buried between the heel and the ball of the foamy underside of her flip-flop, a twitching, gurgling blond teenager the size of a coin was in the midst of her death throes.




“W-w-what?!”




Harmony ripped off her flip-flop to hold it with both hands. Her brown knuckles turned white, pressing indentations in the semi-solid material as she eyed closer to the harrowing sight. Trying to remain on one foot, she did her best to analyze what she saw, but balance was never Harmony’s strong suit. She wibbled and wobbled, and soon Harmony went tumbling down, crashing.




“Waaaahhh!” she yelled, scrambling to grab onto the shelves for balance but only managing to grab a box of Honey Buns, just as quickly launched from her hands and onto the floor ahead in the midst of her chaotic descent.




SLAM!




“Owwwww…” Harmony rubbed her jaw, hit hard in the fall, and tried to achieve a criss-cross position when from the corner of her eye, something truly… unexplainable began to happen.




The box of Honey Buns was shrinking.




Before her very eyes, the box went from ten inches wide to eight, then six, an exponential size decrease until it was the size of a pill-bottle, and then finally, a pill itself.




“No way…” Harmony rubbed her eyes to ensure the pallid hopelessness of the grocery store wasn’t inducing some sort of hallucination. “The girl!”




Harmony looked around for the discarded flip-flop, dragging her hands along the ground. “A-ha!” she cheered, finally grasping it from beneath the shelf and pulling it out. She wiped some dirt from the sole pad, then turned the flip-flop around again.




There she was, choking. She was jammed between the treads, one arm bent the wrong way, one leg hanging off by a handful of tendons. Her face looked like heck, and there were several cavities of differing severity peppering her chest. She was alive, but it was certain it wouldn’t be for long. And she was scared. Harmony could tell that much.




“You’re…” Harmony reached one finger out to touch the girl. For what reason? She didn’t know precisely. But it wouldn’t matter anyway soon; various bodily juices flowed out in drips from her, and in a fit of slight disgust Harmony retracted her finger. “You’re real icky.




Harmony could tell the girl wanted to say something in response; she became manic, letting out squeaks of indeterminate nature, but Harmony no longer cared.




“You’re… look, sorry, but I can’t worry about you right now.”




The girl shook her head, a frantic and delirious motion, as Harmony stretched her leg out, sliding the flip-flop back on her foot and pulling the thong tightly into first and second toes. Once secure, Harmony clambered to her feet, hearing yet an even tinnier crronch.




“Mm…” Harmony glared down at her feet, then she pushed down hard, rolling out every single crack and break and snap she could beneath the ball of her foot like a rolling pin, rubbing her flip-flop across the hard linoleum floor, grinding bone and flattening muscle, until little more than a ghostly red imprint remained. She grasped her ankle again and saw the light pink splotch on the ridged well-worn rubber, and resolved to wash the wear this weekend.




Now… she turned her attention to the shrunken box of Honey Buns.




There it sat, smaller than a matchbox, in the middle of the floor. Harmony wanted to reach forward and grab it, examine it firsthand. So she did, approaching it slightly, tentatively.




But at that first step, something stopped Harmony. A feeling, an intuition, an instinct. A static charge permeating the area, the origin of which was that spot.




There, at the fork, the intersection of the bread aisle and the juice shelf. Something was off.




Harmony looked behind her. The store was as empty as it typically was.




Heart beating fast, Harmony grabbed a sack of hamburger buns from one of the shelves. Thumb and forefinger clutching the tassel that held the bag closed, Harmony shimmied to the edge of the aisle. She swung her arm, gearing to toss them when within her hands, the bag began to shrink.




GASP!




Harmony made a high-pitched whine and hopped back, watching the buns reduce and reduce in size until it was scarcely larger than a marble.




Harmony looked at it for the longest while. Never taking her eyes off that spot in the floor, she slowly bent her legs like a hydraulic platform. Squatting, she reached a hand out to the shelf and squabbled for something, anything to grab hold of. Her fingers closed on something, and she pulled it out. Harmony snuck a glance and read the label…




“Hostess… Fruitfetti… Fruit-flavored Donettes?” Harmony groaned. She’d be doing the world a favor getting rid of a snack this offensive to confectionery everywhere.




Harmony set the bag on the ground lengthwise in front of her. After verifying the bag was indeed not shrinking, she used two fingers and pushed it with the utmost care forward.




It was an inch ahead. And still nothing.




Harmony let out a sigh and relaxed. She could breathe a little easier at least. That out of the way, she pushed the bag forward again, and again, and again, each time waiting a few seconds to remain safe.




It was only after a minute of this one-inch strategy that finally, the bag shivered and began to rapidly shrink down until it was the size of a Barbie prop. Harmony followed its descent with her own eyes.




“Whooooooaaaaa…”




Harmony reached on the other side of the shelves for a bag of flour, keeping one eye on the tiny bag of Donettes. She ripped it open, coughing slightly as the misty powder invaded her face. Then she overturned the bag, pouring the soft powder out onto the floor.




Whoa!




Too much.




Harmony slowed the drizzle of flour to a trickle, and drew a line on the ground in front of her. The line roughly marked the delineation between her current aisle and the one that ran perpendicular to her. Some of the flour had, conspicuously, shrunk and disappeared in a rough arc that cut through the deposited pile




“Okay! And now…” Harmony reached into the bag and pulled out a clump of flour. She tossed it over the line, into the mystery zone. And it disappeared from sight.




“Hmmmmmm…” Harmony grabbed another clump and angled her toss a bit more carefully. She was now pushing into the right hand shelves to get a good view of her target to the left. The towers jiggled and shook as Harmony once again threw.




Some of the dust shrank, but just enough didn’t shrink, and it instead settled on the floor. In the negative space formed by the zone of regression, the arc became more clear. Somehow, someway, there was a circle being formed in space, a circle where anything that entered was going to shrink away until they were as small as a bug.




To be safe, Harmony reversed her orientation and deposited some flour on the other side of the arc, roughly completing the circle of powder, within which none could enter without being reduced. If she really wanted to, Harmony could squeeze through the entryway against one of the shelves’ corners… but that would’ve been uncomfortable and terror-inducing.




“Huh.”




Harmony admired her handiwork. Maybe she should put up a… wet floor sign? Or something?




“Meh, not my job.”




And Harmony turned to meet with her mother. Surely she was likely to have paid by now, and she would not be happy.




Harmony made her way to the opposite point of egress of the aisle, only stopping when a shopping cart jammed into her path, nearly running over her bare toes.




“Oh,” Harmony said, “I’m so--”




Ugh, didn’t anyone teach you to watch where you’re going?” The older brunette woman scoffed. Harmony was taken aback.




“I-I’m sorr--”




“Look, child, I don’t care. I’m looking for my daughter and I don’t have time to get into chitchat with children.”




The woman’s sneer and self-righteous attitude were enough to strike a very particular type of hatred into Harmony’s heart. But something she said began to nag at Harmony… something she had to address.




“Daughter?”




“Yeah, daughter. Like I assume you must be? She’s tall, blonde… lanky… always looking down at her phone…” The brunette’s self-assured belittling began to dissipate. Her knuckles gripped the shopping cart handle with flesh-ripping tightness, and her lips quivered. “I… I tried calling but I forgot that I…”




Sniff.




Harmony turned her head, glancing down at the dusty red splotch on the linoleum.




“Anyway, I need to go.”




The wheels on the cart began to turn, and Martha started once more.




Wait!




Martha stopped and turned, hopeful, to Harmony. Harmony sucked in a breath. Then she put on her most endearing, cute, pouty, sulky face, and she said, “I’m lost too! I need to call my mom but I don’t have a phone… can I use yours?”




Martha shifted, looking to the girl’s whining face. Though of an indeterminate ethnicity… she didn’t look like a criminal… Eventually, Martha sighed; not like the phone was doing her much good at the moment anyway.




Martha pulled her phone out, an iPhone jammed into one of those cases that also doubled as a wallet. Whoa, thought Harmony. Convenient. She watched the woman type in the passcode, standing on her tippy toes to get an idea of where she pressed.




Martha handed the phone to Harmony, who took it. She shadow-dialed a number and held it up to her ear immediately, pacing childlike in a circle, her repeating arc bringing her closer and closer to the other end of the aisle, lined with patterns of flour. In an abundance of caution, Martha took several steps following the girl, out from the wide-openness of the grocery store, deeper and deeper into near-solitude.




“Mama! It’s me, Chastity!” Harmony lied. “I’m still in the supermarket, I lost you! Where are you?”




Harmony waited a few seconds as her phantom conversation partner gave a detailed string of nonexistent directions.




“Okay, great! … Hm? You need me to get some…” Harmony glanced to the very highest shelf on the counter, directly ahead of where the shrinking spot lay. “... some Dole Orange Juice? I’ll try… but I’m not tall enough to reach. Oh, it’s fine, I can just ask someone, right?” Harmony gave a meaningful look to Martha, who overheard the entire fake conversation.




Martha sighed, then sauntered over to the shelf. Harmony’s heart erupted into an avalanche of flutters, beating harder than it ever had as she watched this woman depart into what was sure to be an unfortunate fate, heels clacking on the floor. Harmony cringed as she watched Martha nearly slip on the line of flour and curse the store’s absent janitorial staff before reaching up and grabbing the juice in one hand.




“Okay I…” Martha started, when she stopped suddenly. “I…” Martha doubled over, taking several, wavering steps toward Harmony who in turn took several steps back. She dropped the juice.




That’s right… thought Harmony, a euphoria filling her like none ever before. Come to me.




“I-I-I…” Martha hiccupped, dropping the dwindling juice carton and grabbing hold of one of the shelves just in time for her to shrink enough that her shoes could no longer reach the floor. “What?!” she hissed, hanging onto the ledge like an amateur cliff-diver, before letting go. She fell, rather poetically, in the same spot in which Harmony put an end to that blonde chick’s life. “What did… you… what?!”




“Mm hmm, got it,” Harmony said into the phone, checking her star-patterned nails, acting oblivious. “Anyway, yeah, don’t worry about me. See you soon, Mom.” Harmony pressed a random point on the blank screen to hang up the phone, then stared down at Martha’s diminutive form as it contracted painfully, leaving the formerly proud woman at a size of barely three quarters of an inch.




Martha squirmed on the tile, watching as shelves shot into the sky like iron-lined cliffs protecting a great and solemn kingdom. The lights above blurred into indistinction, becoming suns unto themselves. For some reason… she could smell the faint hint of blood. And…




Fwop… fwop… fwop…




Each foamy, rubbery fwop, a death bell, as a quivering Marthy turned supine. The suns were blotted out, and a shadow was cast. Above her, this bratty young girl sneered down, derision dripping off her face in bowls, arms akimbo.




“Thanks for the phone,” Harmony chirped, whacking her flip-flop on the ground once again, repeatedly. “And the wallet. Credit card… debit card… cash… the Honey Bun Collective will honor your sacrifice.”




What, the… what the fuck?!” Martha tried to crawl backwards, scratching her palms on the unbuffed floor. “Are you… aren’t you going to help me?




“Sorry,” Harmony’s voice had venomous intent. She crouched, jamming her enigmatic, perfectly caramel, deity-sized face directly into the sphere of the sniveling woman. “I don’t have time for chitchat with bugs. Though… if you really wanna see what happened to your daughter…”




Harmony drew up her legs, butt crashing to the floor with unfathomable force to the diminutive Martha. Thankful that these sweatpants were well-insulated from the cold of the floor, Harmony grabbed her flip-flop off and gave an obligatory toe wiggle for freedom before turning it over and showing the underside to Martha.




This. I didn’t even notice it at first!”




The reddish, pinkish, star-shaped imprint. Martha gasped, hiccuped, and sobbed. She wanted to vomit, now realizing what that bloody red scent was.




“Y-y-youuuu--




“Bugs don’t talk.”




And Harmony slammed her foot down on top of Martha with a wet SMACK!!!




Harmony shuddered, both from the cold of the floor, and from the adrenaline rush she was enduring even now, feeling the need to look over her shoulder, from side to side, front and behind, making sure nobody was watching. The sound of the stomp was deceptively quiet; from here it was like a gunshot, but it likely didn’t even make it past the aisles.




Harmony sighed of relief, then paid attention to the sensations from beneath her foot. If anything had been alive under there, it was now… not alive. The combination of the cold dusty floor mixed with the smooth, wet, warm remains was an experience unlike any other. Harmony angled her foot on its side, barely able to suppress the urge to giggle as she saw the thin strip of blood connecting the unrecognizable splotch plastered on her sole to the floor proper.




“Honey Buns… now you’re mine,” Harmony said, finally standing to full height. She relished the crunches as the woman was further steamrolled before putting her flip-flop back on. A red stamp from her foot to the flop, one that she considered simply keeping there for as long as she owned this footwear. It was a nasty thought, and as a result even more enticing for the immature young lady.




Smack, pop, crackle.




Harmony’s heart leapt and she turned, feeling an overwhelming need to run before… Oh. It was just a girl. A tall one, carrying a block of cheese in one hand and a lighter in the other. She smelled faintly of… some unknown scent that Harmony wasn’t a fan of, and she was currently smacking on gum.




“Hey, you. You haven’t seen an older brown-haired woman anywhere, have you?”




What?




Harmony began to raise a shaky finger toward Stephanie… then lowered it, saying nothing. Her mind, meanwhile, was racing. Who was… Was that… Who is… Harmony’s breaths quickened as she considered the truth, the truth that her first victim wasn’t even that skank lady’s daughter, but was simply another dime-a-dozen white blonde chick..




But why not?




Why not crush smaller beings? Harmony hadn’t shrunken them herself… that had been… a happy accident.




And honestly… if they happen to wind up splattered underneath her soles in the quest for Honey Buns… isn't that just bad luck?




“Hellooooo, can you hear me? Look, it’s not like I wanted your help but you happen to be one of the only people left in this store… so…”




Stephanie waited expectantly, tapping her Converse on the ground over and over and over again as Harmony blue-screened, wracking her brain for the correct decision to make, until…




A calm fell over her.




Harmony stepped to the side, and she gestured toward the negative zone. “Yeah, I think so. She went over there.”




“Gotcha.”




Without thanks or acknowledgement, Harmony watched Stephanie go, counting the seconds as she crossed the threshold.




Three.




Two…




***




The Car - White Toyota Prius




Harmony left the store and walked into the night. Moths crowded every light source, and the heat of midday had yet to truly dissipate. As Harmony scanned the parking lot, she cringed upon noticing the car was expelling fumes, which in turn meant that her mother was already inside.




Avoiding a few stagnant puddles of water-like fluid, Harmony reached and opened the back door before clambering into the near-freezing cold of the AC and buckling up.




“Mom, I…”




“No, it’s fine.” Sanjana waved it away. “The register was having issues. I just got here. You’re good, love.”




“Oh… okay.” Harmony wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. She planted her plastic grocery bag on the floor, then unwrapped the seat belt, sprawling out. She was short enough that she only had to bend her legs slightly to fit, as though the back row of seats were now a bed. Harmony took care however not to touch her flip-flops on the car door, as now both of them had matching sets of victims peppering their undersides, disappeared into the night, indistinct, nothing more than a bug to die at the feet of this sugar-addicted child.




RRRRRRRevvvvv… The car shifted gears. Sanjana reached for the headrest and turned as she prepared to back out, planting eyes on the mysterious bag. “Hey…” Planting her foot on the brake, Sanjana reached in to grab the box of granola bars. “Where'd you get the money to buy this?”




Harmony half-lidded her eyes. Without missing a beat, she said, “I made it by selling some of my lunches.”




Sanjana groaned. “Harmony… you can’t just sell the lunches I painstakingly make for you… but I'm glad you're finally eating a bit healthier."




Harmony gave a toothy grin. “Of course, Mama. Just until I get my grades up.”




The Prius crunched over a discarded granola bar and backed out of the parking space, turning before driving down the lane. As Harmony let the gentle rocking of the vehicle lull her to a deep slumber, she reached one hand into the bag, carefully searching for the cardboard seam of the Nature Valley box, prying its loose ends open to carefully pat and caress the soft cellophane that enveloped the clandestine Honey Buns within. Harmony sealed the box once more and allowed herself to drift away, her lips moving on their own to hum a bouncy hip hop tune.




Look at you, now look at me… look at you, now look at me, how you like ‘dat…”




Little Debbie Honey Buns!

So Good…

You Could KILL For Them!

Chapter End Notes:

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